Developing Courses for WordPress

As WordPress gains more popularity, high schools, colleges and universities, and online learning environments are spending more time and money developing WordPress-based courses. Over the last few years I have developed several curriculums for myself, for colleges, and for training-based companies. In this talk, I will go through my process for developing one of my courses, and the important concept of learning by doing.

Transcript

1. Developing Courses for WordPress Joe Casabona wp1mo.in/wcbalt-courses @jcasabona
6. Learn by Doing
7. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fl employs over 77,000 people alone.
8. How Does this Apply to Developing Courses?
10. Develop courses that teach by doing.
11. High Level Process Overview • Come Up with Concept • Develop Outline • Do & Document
12. Up and Running with Beaver Builder
13. Come Up with a Concept • Pick a single project to develop and teach through that • Could be real or fictional • Some ideas: Restaurant, NPO, anything from your portfolio, a real live case study
15. Develop an Outline • What should students get out of course? • Define your objectives & your assumptions • “Ordered Brain Dump” • Very rough!
17. Iterate on Outline • Refine the Outline • Fill in some of the bullet points • Best Case: This translates into your lessons and modules • Worst Case: It’s your “to do list” for creating the site
18. Beaver Builder Course Objectives • General familiarity with the plugin and its settings • Learn how to use the [separate] Theme’s customizer • Create pages from blank and pre-created templates • Run down most (if not all) of the modules
19. Beaver Builder Course Assumptions • User knows how to use WordPress • User knows how to install themes and plugins • User knows of Beaver Builder (but not necessarily what page builders are or what they exist) • User does not have a theme picked out • User is using a paid version of the plugin & has access to all modules.
20. Before You Do… • Decide the medium for your course • In person or online? • Videos or text-based tutorials? • Create all the content • Write all the Words • Choose all the images
21. How will you Build the Course?
22. Beaver Builder Course 
 “Pre-Dos” • It will be an online course • It will be mixed tutorials and videos, with a heavy focus on video content • There will be no tests/quizzes/assignments. Their tangible is the site that we DO together.
23. Beaver Builder Course 
 “Pre-Dos”: Content • Home: Tag line, about text, featured and upcoming trips • About: More about the company, pilots, testimonials • Trips: Upcoming Trips & Testimonials • Blog: Configured for blog posts • Contact: Google Map, address, phone number, contact form
24. DO & Document • Take each point in your outline, one-by-one, and do it. • As you do, write down what you do & take screenshots • If you’re using video, record the whole process; you can always edit later.
25. Do & Document • You may start reworking or even adding content at this point • Make sure what you’re doing make sense and adheres to your objectives • Always work towards your final product
26. Why Do First? • There are lots of reasons to do as you go • What if a process changed or works differently than how you remember? • You’re forces to explain what you’re doing as you do it • You can quickly change direction as needed
27. For the Beaver Builder Course, when I realized their theme made the most sense, I added an entire lesson & video set.
28. Final Product Up and Running with Beaver Builder Introduction The WordPress Editor What is Beaver Builder? Primer & Terminology Configure Settings Beaver Builder Theme Content & Finding a Good Theme Choosing Colors & Fonts Customizer: Content Areas Customizer: Color Scheme Customizer: Fonts Creating Your Pages Setting up the Pages Intro to the Page Builder Home Page About Page Trips Page Contact Page Other Functions Modules Kitchen Sink Importing & Exporting Resources
30. Talking at Students doesn’t work.
31. What’s that about giving a man a fish?
32. Work along side them!
33. Teach Your Students to Fish by making them Fish* *Or whatever it is you teach. You can take them fishing too.
34. Front End Developer 
 @ Crowd Favorite Teacher Joe Casabona @jcasabona casabona.org wp1mo.in/wcbalt-courses